Christopher Priest - The Space Machine

“We have walked too long without food,” she said. “I came over dizzy, and—”

“It must be the altitude,” I said. “We will find some way down from this plateau as soon as possible.”

I delved into her bag, and found the chocolate. We had still eaten only a fraction of what we had, so I broke off two more squares and gave them to her.

“No, Edward.”

“Eat it,” I said. “You are weaker than I am.”

“We have just had some. We must make it last.”

She took the broken-off squares and the rest of the chocolate, and put them firmly back inside the bag.

“What I should really like,” she said, “is a glass of water. I’m very thirsty indeed…”

“Do you suppose the sap of the plants is drinkable?”

“If we do not find any water, we will have to try it in the end.”

I said: “When we were first thrown into the weeds I swallowed some of the sap. It was not unlike water, but rather bitter.”

After a few more minutes Amelia stood up, a little unsteadily I thought, and declared that she was fit to continue. I made her take another sip of brandy before moving on.

But then, although we walked much more slowly, Amelia stumbled again. This time she did not lose consciousness, but said she felt as if she was about to be sick. We rested for a full thirty minutes, while the sun moved to its zenith.

“Please, Amelia, eat some more chocolate. I’m sure that all you are suffering from is lack of sustenance.”

“I’m no more hungry than you,” she said. “It is not that”

“Then what is it?”

“I cannot tell you.”

“You do know what is the matter?”

She nodded.

“Then please tell me, and I can do something to help.”

“You could do nothing, Edward. I shall be all right.”

I knelt on the sand before her, and placed my hands on her shoulders. “Amelia, we do not know how much further we have to walk. We cannot go on if you are ill.”

“I am not ill”

“It looks very much like it to me.”

“I am uncomfortable, but not ill.”

“Then please do something about it,” I said, my concern changing abruptly to irritation.

She was silent for a moment, but then, with my assistance, climbed to her feet “Wait here, Edward. I shall not be long.”

She took her bag, and walked slowly towards the weed-bank. She stepped carefully through the lower plants, and headed towards a growth of higher stalks. When she reached these she turned round and looked in my direction, then crouched down and moved behind them.

I turned my back, assuming she would prefer her privacy.

Several minutes passed, and she did not emerge. I waited for a quarter of an hour, then began to get worried. There had been an absolute silence since she had disappeared … but even in my growing sense of alarm I felt I should wait and respect her privacy.

I had just consulted my watch, and discovered that more than twenty minutes had passed, when I heard her voice.

“Edward…?”

Without further delay I ran in her direction, racing through the scarlet vegetation towards where I had last seen her. I was tormented by the vision of some momentous disaster that had befallen her, but nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.

I came to a sudden halt, and immediately averted my gaze:

Amelia had removed her skirt and blouse, and was standing in her underwear!

She held her skirt protectively over her body, and was looking at me with an expression of cowed embarrassment.

“Edward, I cannot get them off… Please help me…”

“What are you doing?” I cried in astonishment.

“It is my stays that are too tight… I can hardly breathe. But I cannot unlace them.” She sobbed more loudly, then went on: “I did not want you to know, but I have not been alone since yesterday. They are so tight… please help me…”

I cannot deny that I found her pathetic expression amusing, but I covered my smile and moved round behind her.

I said: “What do I do?”

“There are two laces… they should be tied at the bottom with a bow, but I’ve accidentally knotted them.”

I looked more closely, and saw what she had done. I worked at the knot with my fingernails, and loosened it without difficulty.

“There,” I said, turning away. “It is free.”

“Please undo it, Edward. I can’t reach it myself.”

The agonies I had been suppressing came abruptly to the surface. “Amelia, you cannot ask me to undress you!”

“I just want these laces undone,” she said. “That is all.”

Reluctantly I went back to her and started the laborious process of slipping the laces through the eyelets. When the task was half-completed, and part of the restraining garment was loose, I saw just how tight it had been on her body. The laces slipped out of the last two eyelets, and the corset came free. Amelia pulled it away from her, and tossed it casually to the ground. She turned towards me.

“I can’t thank you enough, Edward. I think I should have died if I’d kept it on a moment longer.”

Had it not been she who had turned towards me, I should have felt my presence most improper, for she had allowed the skirt to fall away and I could see that her chemise was manufactured of the lightest material, and that her bosom was most prominent I stepped towards her, feeling that I might make the affectionate gesture of a hug, but she moved backwards at once, and brought up the skirt to conceal herself again.

“You may leave me now,” she said. “I can manage to dress on my own.”

When, a few minutes later, Amelia emerged from the weeds, she was fully dressed and carrying the corset between the handles of her bag.

I said: “Are you not going to discard that? It is manifestly uncomfortable to wear.”

“Only for long periods,” she said, looking very abashed. “I shall leave it off for the rest of the day, and wear it again tomorrow.”

“I shall look forward to helping you,” I said, sincerely. “There is no need for that By tomorrow we will be back in civilization, and I will hire a servant”

Since she was still flushed, and I was not a little excited, I felt it appropriate to say: “If my opinion is at all valuable to you I can assure you that your figure is just as trim without it”

“That is not to the point Shall we continue on our way?”

She stepped away from me, and I followed.

All this had been a temporary distraction from our plight, for soon the sun had moved far enough towards the west for the weed-bank to start throwing a shadow. Whenever we walked through this we felt immediately much colder.

After another half an hour’s walking I was just about to propose a rest, when Amelia suddenly halted and looked towards a shallow depression in the ground. She walked briskly towards it.

I followed her, and she said: “We shall have to bivouac again. I think we should prepare now.”

“I agree in principle. But I feel we should walk as far as possible.”

“No, this place is ideal. We shall stay the night here.”

“In the open?”

“There is no need for that. We have time to prepare a campsite before nightfall.” She was regarding the depression with a calculating manner. “When I was in Switzerland I was shown how to build emergency shelters. We will need to make this hole rather deeper, and build up the sides. If you would do that, I will cut some of the fronds.”

We argued for a few minutes—I felt we should take advantage of the daylight and press on—but Amelia had made up her mind. In the end, she removed her jacket and walked over to the weed-bank, while I crouched down and, with my hands, started to scoop out the sandy soil.

It took approximately two hours to construct a camp-site to our mutual satisfaction. By this time I had removed most of the larger pebbles from the depression, and Amelia had broken off a huge pile of the leafiest, fern-like branches. These we had laid in the depression, making a bonfire-like mound of leaves, into the base of which we proposed to insinuate ourselves.